To J P Gilliver You say it is clear that forename and surname are stored separately. However, that is not true. The Name field is stored as one field and it is not separated into parts. I intentionally designed the program to have one name field because I used the original version of PAF which required separate fields and I did not like having to press Tab or Enter between every part of every name. I have added separate fields for Last Name or Sort Name or other parts, because for certain names that is needed. Those extra fields are not needed for most names, so it saves time for most people to just enter a one part name field. If you like using [ ] around the last name like BK5 did it, then you can just keep doing it that way. It should still work fine. I added the new Names tab in BK6 because some users in some situations needed more than [ ] could accomplish. In some countries, the Last name is different from the Sort name. So using [ ] did not handle that situation. Also some people wanted to add more than one alternate name, so that is also done on the names tab. John Steed ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> To: <bk@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2011 8:35 AM Subject: Re: [BK] Name changes - use "Jane name1/name2/name3" format? > In message <DFCB0265D837433A867C4E1928590E10@Dell4600>, John Steed > <brothers_keeper@msn.com> writes: > [] >>If Smith Jones is the last name, then put Smith Jones in both the Last >>Name >>and Sort Name fields on the Names tab. >> >>Then it will treat that like the last name when doing sorting. >> >>To FIND someone with a two part name, put [ ] around the name when >>searching. So search for >> >>Charles [Smith Jones] >> >>and it will find that person that has Smith Jones in the Last Name field. >> >>(In BK5 you would put [ ] up in the Name field at the top, but with BK 6 >>you put the last name in the Last Name field on the Names tab.) > [] > What is the reason you dropped the use of [] when moving from 5 to 6? I > for one find several aspects of the use of the Names tab not at all > intuitive. (That could be just me, of course.) > > Given that it's clear from the above that forename and surname are > stored separately internally, is there any chance of you introducing a > bar (a mullion?) into the basic Name box, to separate it into two boxes? > (Possibly four, to allow for prefixes [like Dr. or Lord] and suffixes > [like M. B. E., B. Sc., or callsigns], though it might be better to have > those as fields in one of the tabs.) Certainly a lot of other places - > including, for example, Ancestry - do this. > > Regards, John > -- > J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf > > "Bother," said Pooh, as Eeyore sneezed the crack all over Owl. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message >